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Community Health Organization Davies Award (2008): White River Rural Health Center Mariah Delaire HTM 680 Dr. Sary Beidas
July 9, 2016
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Community Health Organization Davies Award: White River Rural Health Center White River Rural Health Center (WRRHC) is a private nonprofit corporation that was developed to provide affordable health care to ten rural Arkansas counties spanning 6,000 square miles (Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, 2016). A major roadblock WRRHC faced was providing effective quality care to the communities in the service area due to the many inefficiencies in their paperbased medical records system. To address the problems of paperbased charts, WRRHC decided it was time to move forward with the adoption of an Electronic Health Records (EHR) system. They developed a health information technology team to lead the process and determined the organization’s strategic objectives to meet their workflow, patient flow, data standards, and more. Their four main objectives were to improve care access, patient and population outcomes, point of care quality and continuity of care. The health IT leadership team consisted of the CEO, CIO, Quality Director, Quality Support, Business Office Liaison, LPN, and DON. The vision of the project was to transform, not to change, which is why most of the valuable resources the team relied on were from past experiences. The team decided they needed to find an EHR vendor that allowed them to customize their needs in order to transform their current paper based system. They required that the potential vendor be CCHIT certified as well as pass multiple functionality tests. In addition, they required that the vendor be ranked first place in a public venue such as HIMSS. After extensive research, WRRHC chose eClinicalWorks based on the vendor’s ability to bring their specification to life. The system came equipped with a patient hub that allowed patient information to be accessed across any care line and delivery. Clinical decision support, a clinical reference database, dynamic care templates and standardized treatment protocols were also built into the system (Collier, et al., 2008). WRRHC’s adoption of their eClinicalWorks EHR system runs in line with Goal 1 of the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan which is to Expand Adoption of Health IT. One very important feature of their Total Care system is a unified software that connects doctors and staff to a streamlined workflow which increases efficiency, cuts the cost of information delivery, encourages compliance and improves the quality of care to the patients (Collier, et al., 2008). Point of care was also improved through the use of a web portal. This allowed physicians and patients to access medical records remotely. Easy access to information enhances workflow and reduces errors as a result of the live time access to patient information.
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WRRHC’s previous system resulted in patients having multiple records at multiple sites. However, their new EHR system is focused on a one recordone patient model, which enables access at any site by the provider or patient. These features of the Total Care System align very closely with Goal 2 of the Strategic Plan, to Advance Secure and Interoperable Health Information. The integrated workflow processes that come along with the Total Care System were implemented to achieve the highest standard of care and safety. This allows for all health facilities serving the same population to have complete, accurate and timely patient information access. Having complete access that can be shared between facilities improves the continuity of care and health outcomes while providing safe, timely, effective, efficient, and equitable patientcentered care (Collier, et al., 2008). Comprehensive information is the result, which is essential in reducing medication errors and enhancing patient care. The improved workflow processes WRRHC integrated into their system are an example of Goal 3 of the Strategic Plan, to Strengthen Health Care Delivery. Goal 4, to Advance the Health and WellBeing of Individuals and Communities, was another goal from the Strategic Plan that was addressed by WRRHC. This was done by utilizing their EHR system to identify high risk patients and to educate patients and their families to empower them to become more engaged with their care (Collier, et al., 2008). This was mostly achieved through improved provider awareness and evidence based strategies, resulting in better coordination of care and follow ups. Some of the aspects of this disease management program included educating clinicians and providing decision support, assisting clinicians and monitoring patient outcomes, establishing better communication between medical staff, and improving patient education resources (Collier, et al., 2008). WRRHC focused on addressing Goal 5 of the Strategic Plan, to Advance Research, Scientific Knowledge, and Innovation, by using the EHR technology to collect performance measurement data on a regular basis. Qualitative and quantitative data is collected on implementation performance measures, the impact on patients, health care providers, and the organization as a whole. This analysis of data allows for WRRHC to share outcome information to the State planning committees for disease management and to the Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care, which is a state quality improvement organization. This information that is disseminated can be beneficial in spreading EMR best practice. Through the adoption and implementation of an EHR system, WRRHC has increased
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patient satisfaction, created efficiencies, and developed a one patient one record model throughout their organization. Overall, the departmental efficiencies have increased the quality of care and has positively impacted the health care system. The future trends for WRRHC are to plan and incorporate a health exchange interface with hospital partners in the area so information can be easily accessed between inpatient and outpatient care.
References Collier, S., Wolverton, G., Kennedy, B., Morris, N., Martin, K., Barker, S., & Peevy, S. (2008). White River Rural Health Center 2008 Davies Public Health Award. Augusta, Arkansas: White RIver Rural Health Center. Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. (2016, July 9). HIT Journeys. Retrieved from Health IT.gov: https://www.healthit.gov/providersprofessionals/other/white riverruralhealthcenter
